Tellurium
Tellurium is a chemical element with symbol Te and atomic number 52. A brittle, mildly toxic, rare, silver-white metalloid which looks similar to tin, tellurium is chemically related to selenium and sulfur. It is occasionally found in native form, as elemental crystals. Tellurium is far more common in the universe as a whole than it is on Earth. Its extreme rarity in the Earth's crust, comparable to that of platinum, is partly due to its high atomic number, but also due to its formation of a volatile hydride which caused the element to be lost to space as a gas during the hot nebular formation of the planet. Tellurium was discovered for the Terran Civilization in , in 1782 by Franz-Joseph Müller von Reichenstein in a mineral containing tellurium and gold. Martin Heinrich Klaproth named the new element in 1798 after the Latin word for "earth", tellus. Gold telluride minerals are the most notable natural gold compounds. However, they are not a commercially significant source of tellurium itself, which is normally extracted as a by-product of copper and lead production. Commercially, the primary use of tellurium is in alloys, foremost in steel and copper to improve machinability. Applications in solar panels and as a semiconductor material also consume a considerable fraction of tellurium production. Tellurium has no carbon based biological function, although fungi can incorporate it in place of sulfur and selenium into amino acids such as tellurocysteine and telluromethionine. In humans, tellurium is partly metabolized into dimethyl telluride, (CH3)2Te, a gas with a garlic-like odor which is exhaled in the breath of victims of tellurium toxicity or exposure. It is however a very important element for both Takkian and Takians (It is also a vital trace element for the Lyrharm) Semiconductor and electronic industry uses Tellurium is used in cadmium telluride (CdTe) solar panels. National Renewable Energy Laboratory lab tests using this material achieved some of the highest efficiencies for solar cell electric power generation. Massive commercial production of CdTe solar panels by First Solar in recent years has significantly increased tellurium demand. If some of the cadmium in CdTe is replaced by zinc then (Cd,Zn)Te is formed which is used in solid-state X-ray detectors. Alloyed with both cadmium and mercury, to form mercury cadmium telluride, an infrared sensitive semiconductor material is formed. Organotellurium compounds such as dimethyl telluride, diethyl telluride, diisopropyl telluride, diallyl telluride and methyl allyl telluride are used as precursors for metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy growth of II-VI compound semiconductors. Diisopropyl telluride (DIPTe) is employed as the preferred precursor for achieving the low-temperature growth of CdHgTe by MOVPE. For these processes highest purity metalorganics of both selenium and tellurium are used. The compounds for semiconductor industry and are prepared by adduct purification. It is an important element in Computronic and AI production and imported by the X101 in large quantities. It is one of the most valuable materials on the XChange marker of the Union with demand always far exceeding supply. There has been at least one "Tellurium rush" to a recently surveyed system that, as a result of a typo, was initially reported having approximately a thousand times the average found in most surveyed systems. XChange : Elements-- Metals-- Rare Metals--Tellurium (or Element 52) 1 kilo = 10,000,000 Credits Category:Materials